If the House Republicans come away from the shutdown exercise with only one accomplishment: the end to the taxpayer subsidy of health plans for Congress, its staff, and federal appointed officials, it will be a very, very big win which will resonate throughout the land.

Voters who right now hold the government shutdown against the Republicans will reconsider and praise them for their courage and for their own self sacrifice of their own subsidies.

It is a way to take the lemon of a government shutdown over ObamaCare and make lemonade out of it.

But it will only work if the Continuing Resolution the House passes is totally clean except for the repeal of the subsidy. It must give the Democrats no excuse for turning it down.

And, if it is clean, the Senate and Obama would dare not refuse the offer. They can’t shut down the government just to hang onto their subsidies as much as they would probably want to do so.

The Republicans don’t know how to get off the back of the tiger — this is the way.

Then, the House GOP should announce, even as it passes a clean CR, that it will battle over the debt limit and will not shy away from a government shut down over cutting spending before we incur more debt.